alva noto + ryuichi sakamoto – vrioon

Description

during his first live tour in japan, carsten nicolai met ryuichi sakamoto in tokyo. one year later it happened that he was asked to remix material from sakamoto for the japanese magazine code unfinished.

“… the material that was given to me was already layered with digital effects. from one little clean piano piece i made the first track. i combined these simple piano chords with a clear rhythm constellation. … somehow ryuichi was very surprised and really liked my work. weeks later he sent me another track which was specially recorded for this project.”

this was the beginning of an almost 2 year process of music exchange and creation. »vrioon« is very relaxing. it opens rooms, and landscapes blur before the listeners eyes. static rhythmic pieces circle around and vary on the same theme that, with its impressionistic sphere, reminds of soundtracks and ambient compositions.

in this cooperation 2 different generations meet and share the idea of electronic music as an inspiration source for new musical structures.

ryuichi sakamoto has a vast range of musical endeavors; from pioneering early electronic music in his first group yellow magic orchestra, to globally-inspired rock albums, classical compositions, and over twenty film scores including “merry christmas, mr. lawrence”, “the last emporer” and “little buddha”. almost as expansive is his array of prestigious awards; one academy award, two golden globes, and one grammy.

carsten nicolai can be seen as one of the most significant artist of the new electronic music generation that shows new attempts in sound composing with its radical reduced style. besides several solo releases, he also worked with ultra minimalist mika vainio from pan sonic and japanese sound artist ryoji ikeda. carsten nicolai is one of the founders of the label raster-noton that was awarded the golden nica for digital music from ars electronica in 2000.